"Back Talk" and "Trespass"
Back Talk
This was how I learned
Eternity
all foes gone
Just me here now
And free to vary
Trespass
It’s a long dream to keep the clouds
That they might trespass on blue light
Cool or lush against the skin
Perfumed so daylight kisses evening
Peaceably like a soft meal
*
Handprints on the inner door
She likes to think she’s home
*
Undreamt snowfall
Keeps sweet flowers
Dry to brush the walkway
*
He writes to say he hopes I’m smiling
Sometimes I do, sometimes
I fasten on a photograph
When he was smiling.
Sheila E. Murphy. Poems have appeared in Poetry, Hanging Loose, Fortnightly Review, and numerous others. Most recent book: Permission to Relax (BlazeVOX Books, 2023). Received the Gertrude Stein Award for Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Murphy's book titled Reporting Live from You Know Where (2018) won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition from Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland).
Her Wikipedia page can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Murphy.